“You know, they’ve only just proven there’s an evolutionary function to why our hands and feet do this?”
“They have?”
“It’s to help grip underwater, like treads on a car tire.”
“That makes sense.” Avery nodded. “If you think about early humans gathering in streams and rivers and things.”
“Exactly. Or hunting in the rain. It seems so obvious now, but it’s only just been proven. All this time, our bodies have been performing this miracle of intelligent design, and it’s been a mystery to us.”
Avery smiled.
“But now we know.”
Chiti nodded.
“Now we know.”
Chiti tilted her head against the lip of the tub and exhaled.
“One whole year,” she said. “I’d ask how you’re feeling, but I think I know.”
“You do?”
Chiti gave a tired smile.
“Two therapists walk into a bar,” she said. “You’re good, says the first therapist. How am I?”
Avery attempted to return the smile. It was Chiti’s favorite joke; favorite, of course, because it was true. She was preternaturally empathetic, often able to read Avery’s mood by how much milk she put in her coffee in the morning. She had made a profession of understanding others. But Avery didn’t want to be understood right now, not by her wife, not by anyone.
“Did you go to a meeting today?” Chiti asked tentatively.
Avery had only just returned to AA after almost a year hiatus and Chiti seemed not to want to jinx it. Avery shook her head.
“Tomorrow.”
Chiti nodded.
“I miss her, too, you know,” Chiti said suddenly. “Right here.” Chiti clutched her throat and Avery saw her eyes were glazed with tears. “I know it’s important for you to experience your own feelings without competing with mine. But—” Her voice caught. “I loved her, too, and I still love her every day. I just wanted you to know that.”
And Nicky had loved Chiti, all of Avery’s sisters did. Chiti, who had flown to New York with Avery for Nicky’s twenty-first birthday in their first year of dating (if you could call buying a house together within three months of meeting dating) and convinced Avery to stay out dancing and doing karaoke until four in the morning to celebrate. She had surprised them all by singing Dolly Parton’s “Gonna Hurry (As Slow as I Can)” in a voice so tender and full of longing the whole bar gave her a standing ovation. Chiti, who was that rarest of things: a truly great listener. Who remembered the names of her sisters’ friends and lovers and asked after them the next time they met, who made every conversation feel like a house of cards you were building together that never fell down. Chiti said things like I was thinking about what you said last time about trust…and then would deliver some totally brilliant insight while giving the other person credit. She gave beautiful Christmas presents that somehow captured both who the recipient was and who they wanted to be.
She wasn’t perfect, of course. Avery had the usual domestic gripes, like how Chiti’s long hair clogged the shower drain, leaving Avery with the task of yanking out the nauseating tangle. She had truly terrible taste in television and watched the kind of reality shows Avery considered both stultifying and shockingly exploitative. She had very flat feet, but refused to wear her orthotic inserts, let alone shoes that weren’t designed by the patriarchy to cripple women, so she was always insisting on taking cabs because her feet hurt, while Avery loved to walk.
And there was bigger stuff too. Chiti’s growing desire for a baby, for one, which Avery still felt ambivalent about. And, if Avery was honest, sometimes Chiti’s caretaking felt claustrophobic. In Avery’s least generous moments, she saw it as Chiti’s way of gaining control and making others dependent on her so she could protect herself from the same abandonment she had experienced with her mother. Even the act of buying a house in the neighborhood Avery wanted to live in so quickly after they first met was a kind of coercion. Avery may pay half the mortgage and have covered much of the renovations since, but she could never have afforded this house back then. By giving Avery what she always wanted—space, security, a place of her own—Chiti made sure she would never leave.
But that was unfair. Avery had been a willing recipient of all of Chiti’s nurture. She had convinced Chiti to date her despite Chiti’s misgivings about how they met, had delighted at the prospect of moving in together so soon. All her life she had been looking for a love like Chiti’s. And Avery’s sisters loved Chiti for the same reason Avery did: She was her match. Chiti’s keen emotional intelligence acted as a rose to the thorn of Avery’s spiky intellect and, together, they bloomed.
“I know you miss her,” said Avery, attempting to soften. “It’s your loss too.”
She wanted to make room in her heart for Chiti’s grief, but she struggled. If Vish died, Avery would be devastated, of course, but it could never compare to this. Her life had been reduced to two days, the day Nicky was still alive and the day she died. The rich and subtle patchwork of years and seasons that made up her life before was gone.
“It’s Lucky I’m worried about,” she continued. “She didn’t even mention what day it is today in her message. Could she seriously have forgotten?”
“I’m sure she didn’t forget,” said Chiti. “Maybe she just didn’t know what to say.”
Avery could have relented, but she wasn’t done with her grievances.
“And how could our mom have sent that email today of all days? You know I’m going to end up dealing with that whole apartment,” she said, feeling her whole body tighten, despite the relaxing effects of the bath. “It’s just so typical.”
“You never ask your sisters for help,” said Chiti. “If you did, they might be glad to give it.”
Avery shook her head.
“Bonnie won’t go back there, and I get it, you know, after everything she’s been through. Lucky can’t be relied on for anything, you know that. But to sell it now? It’s only been a year! It’s too soon. I told my parents I’d keep paying for it, why won’t they just let me?”
“Maybe they want to move on,” said Chiti softly.
“Well, maybe they should think about us for a change.”
“It sounds like your sisters might be ready to let it go too.” Avery opened her mouth, but Chiti raised her hand to finish her thought. “Not because they don’t care as much as you do, but because it’s too painful to hold on.”
Avery was about to dispute this, but she let herself fall slack against the back of the tub instead.
“I wish I saw people the way you do,” she said, submerging herself deeper.
“How is that?”
“Generously.”
